Myanmar said Friday that Vietnam's military-run telecom firm Viettel and the local consortium with which it is partnering will be granted a license to operate mobile phone services in the nation.

The local consortium is a group of 11 companies that includes Yatanarpon Teleport (YTP), a Myanmar Internet service provider. Word of the license came from the country's communications ministry.

Myanmar opened its market for wireless communication services in the summer of 2014, ending what until then had been a monopoly by state-owned Myanma Posts and Telecommunications (MPT).

Qatar's Ooredoo and Norway's Telenor were the first two foreign telecom companies to win mobile licenses, and MPT responded by teaming with Japanese mobile carrier KDDI and trading house Sumitomo Corp.

Now that Viettel and the YTP-led local consortium have won a fourth license, competition in Myanmar's mobile market, where phone fees have already dropped by more than half, is expected to heat up even further.